


The World Grows Silent

by Khristian_Rinku



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Religious Cults, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-17 20:25:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17567387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khristian_Rinku/pseuds/Khristian_Rinku
Summary: For years, the town of Silent Hill has been shrouded in mystery and legend. It's hard to distinguish the fact from the fiction. What if the legend found a way to spread?Author's Note:  This story features original characters set in the backdrop of a universe where Silent Hill exists.  Characters and ideas from the game series may be mentioned.  This will not be pulp fiction.  You may find that this story progresses slowly.  It is definitely not going to be for everyone.  Having said that, I hope you enjoy.





	1. Chapter 1

“Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced.”

-John Keats

**One**

****

You could almost hear it around the campus. It floated through the hallways, spilling outside and circling around the quad area that was becoming densely populated. It was the middle of October, which meant that there was a giant wave of relief sweeping through the student body.

It definitely wasn’t the biggest or most prestigious university, but Clearview University had been around for just about two-hundred years. One-hundred and ninety-eight to be exact. One could make an educated guess about its age when looking at the buildings, especially the six that surrounded the quad. Red brick composition with a dash of weathering here and there. It seemed as if a scaffold was always attached to one of them replacing deteriorated bricks or replacing windows.

The school itself had a rich history, originating as a seminary school and remaining so for a little more than the first half of its existence. Back then it was known as St. Donan’s College, founded by five priests of Irish ancestry. Rumors and legends speak about a series of tragic accidents or happenings that eventually caused the school to be shut down, with some speculations that there was a mass killing that was covered up by the local authorities. It stayed abandoned for about twenty-five years until it was re-opened as a progressive woman’s only college known as Clearview University. Even though it became co-ed just a short time after, the name stuck and it seemed to effectively bury the school’s dark secrets.

On this early Friday afternoon, none of that mattered or lingered on the minds of the student body. Fall break officially started today, and despite only being an extended weekend of essentially four days, it also marked the end of mid-terms, as well as the end of stress for at least a half of a week. Everyone was a little happier, livelier, amplified by the fact that it was a beautiful day and unusually warm for the season. There was a group of about eight to ten students tossing a Frisbee around on one of the grassy areas, which was devolving into a friendly game of monkey in the middle with two female students playing the aforementioned primate roles. Even the teachers seemed to walk with a little bit of pep in their steps. One of them, a paunchy middle-aged man with thinning dark brown hair and matching moustache, may have been walking a little too briskly when he accidentally brushed by a young brunette, knocking into a textbook she was carrying. She managed to keep a tight grip on the book, but the momentum of the collision spun her half-way around, causing her to drop her water bottle on the ground. Luckily, it was capped, thus preventing a complete calamity.

“Hey!” the startled girl exclaimed.

The male teacher didn’t even look back as he disappeared into the ever growing crowd of people. The girl’s friend, a taller and paler girl, with wavy auburn colored hair, bent down to pick the bottle up and hand it back to her now fuming friend.

“Jerkoff! Pederast!” the blonde yelled towards the now-vanished teacher as she snatched the water bottle from her friend. With a huff she started walking again, with her friend hot on her heels.

“Jesus Nicole, that’s Mr. Miller!” The taller girl said incredulously. “He’s still a department head!”

“Not of my department. And that doesn’t give him the right to just bump into me without a second thought.” Nicole took a long gulp from her water bottle. The two friends turned off the main path of the quad onto a shady path that led past the library, which was the second largest building in the school after the university center. The taller girl chuckles as she tucks some strands of hair behind her ear.

“What’s a pederast anyway? One of your psych terms?” She inquires, playfully jabbing her finger into her friend’s bicep.

Nicole smirked, giving a gentle shove back with her shoulder. “Someone who practices pederasty. A guy who likes young boys. With that creepy moustache of his, I’d say Mr. Miller looks like he may dabble. At least that means we’re safe, Hannah.”

Nicole and Hannah continued on the pathway that wrapped around the other side of the library, laughing at their private joke. Throughout Clearview University, a small stream cut through the campus running west to east, with small wooden bridges, no more than twenty feet in length, to connect the pathways. The bridge, however, was also no more than about four feet wide, which made it a tight squeeze when walking with someone side by side. Given the crowd of people coming from the other direction, Nicole and Hannah fell in step single file as a courtesy, while others across the way did the same.

The breeze started to pick up from the south, which caused Nicole’s hair to whip in front of her face as they approached the bridge. Annoyed, she brushed it back away from her eyes with her left hand, as her right lingered on the wooden railing. From behind, she heard Hannah speaking but her focus was straight ahead, and it just became background noise. Coming towards her, in that group of non-descript students, all seemingly wearing the college uniform of blue jeans and school sweatshirt, one of the faces stuck out. She wasn’t quite sure if it was his attire, with the black on black of t-shirt and jeans combination that loomed like a shadow amongst the blue and orange wave growing closer. It may have been that simple aesthetic that caused the young man to stand out. His eyes were cast down towards the ground, the only one in the group who wasn’t talking to someone else, although visible white earbuds indicated that some sort of sound was accompanying him on his walk.

Perhaps he could feel her eyes on him, for right as they were about to pass, he raised his head and locked on to her. She could swear she saw a fire behind those bright green eyes, and though it may have only lasted a second, he seemed to go by in slow motion. Whatever trance Nicole had been in was broken by a sharp sensation in her right hand.

“Damnit!” Nicole exclaimed, holding her hand up. She spied a tiny, brown speck on her palm that would have been missed if the pain hadn’t been there. Luckily, there was enough wood on the surface to successfully pluck it out.

“That’s why you don’t run your hand across wood.” Hannah quipped as they exited the bridge and were able to walk side by side again. “Seriously though, wash your hand when we get back.”

“Yes, mother.” Nicole replied whilst rolling her eyes. She turned around to look at the man again, who was quickly fading into the distance. “Hey, you see that guy?” Nicole asked Hannah while pointing.

Hannah turned to look, but shrugged. “You need to be more specific.”

“All black, kinda pale. Did he look familiar to you?” Nicole inquired.

“I don’t know, didn’t see his face.” Hannah replied. “Was he hot?”

Nicole scrunched her face, waving her hand back and forth. “Wasn’t bad, but I feel like I know him. I just can’t place it.”

“Nicki, it’s Clearview, not Penn State. You’ve probably seen him walking around before.” Hannah stated as they both turned to continue their walk. They were coming up on a set of four-story dormitories, with their destination specifically being the buildings on the right. The freshman dorms consisted of two buildings, one for female students and one for males, which were connected by a walkway on the second floor. It was an obvious afterthought in design, an addition that was perhaps the only modern bit of architecture other than the new medical center. Hannah and Nicole met as roommates in their first semester at Clearview and were fortunate enough to hit it off.

Just as they were within a few yards of the front door to Warren Hall, where they resided, Hannah’s phone started buzzing loudly. Hannah whipped her purple backpack around, frantically digging through for a few seconds before retrieving the phone.

“Hello?” Hannah answered, stopping in her tracks and placing a hand on Nicole’s shoulder to stop her as well. Nicole turned, watching Hannah’s eyes light up. “Hey, what’s up? Yeah…now? Uhh…” Hannah looked up at Nicole, “…sure! Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay, see you there.” Hannah hung up and her lips curled into a smile.

“Okay, who was that?” Nicole inquired.

“Remember that guy in my I was telling you about from Algebra?” Hannah asked, drawing a shrug from Nicole. “You know, Jason?”

Nicole, still clearly not knowing who she was talking about, chose to play along, nodding a few times. “Jason, right. Yeah, that cute guy, right?”

Hannah laughs and nods in kind, clearly understanding that her friend is just playing along. “Right, as if I’d be that tongue-tied over a troll. Anyways,” Hannah continues whilst pacing in small steps, “he wants to grab lunch with him like, right now. So I’m gonna meet him over by Winter and Hamilton.”

Nicole sighed. “Well shit, there goes my idea of grabbing a bite at the Caf. Where are you two going anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah started, absent-mindedly twirling her hair, “should I have asked first? How do I look? Should I change first?” Hannah asks with a frown while looking at her outfit.

“Jesus, who is this guy?” Nicole inquires, waving in a dismissive manner. “You look great, go on. Just remember to make him work for it.”

Hannah lets out a high-pitched sound that can only be described as a squeak, obviously doing a horrible job of containing her excitement. She leans in to exchange a cheek kiss with Nicole then turns and walks away at a brisk pace. Nicole chuckles to herself, turning around and heading inside Warren Hall.

The inside of the dorm is relatively unremarkable. Taupe-colored walls with a pair of corkboards in the main lobby area, filled with dozens of flyers that encompass every inch. It’s relatively quiet with the exception of the TV which is always on, even if nobody is around. A couple of girls that Nicole recognized pass her by and head out the way that she came in. There doesn’t seem to be a RA or attendant around, which Nicole finds odd but dismisses the thought as quickly as it came. She headed past the front desk and towards the open door that led to the staircase.

As soon as she touched the first step, she felt an intense pain in her head, causing her eyes to narrow and taking a moment to stop. She had been getting migraines on and off for the last couple of years, so it was nothing new, but it didn’t make them easier to deal with. Nicole silently cursed to herself and soldiered on up the two flights of stairs to her floor.

Every hallway in the dorm was brightly lit, which didn’t do her any favors. She squinted and shielded her eyes, casting them down in the direction a rhythmic sound was approaching from. It grew louder and she took a few steps to meet it, until she spied the source of the noise; a pair of pink and black sneakers that stopped in front of her.

“Hey, Nic! What’re you doing?” The owner of the sneakers asked. Nicole knew that it was Cara, a girl who stayed just two rooms down across the hall. She was always upbeat and just a little too tan for normal humans.

“Oh, hey Cara. Just heading to my room for a little darkness.” Nicole responded while keeping her hand over one of the light’s sources. Seeing the way Cara canted her head to the side, Nicole elaborated. “I have a vicious migraine.”

“Bummer!” Cara exclaimed. “Hey you know my mom always drank tomato juice when she had a headache, maybe that’ll help. Do you have any tomato juice? I don’t.”

It made Nicole feel a little better as she thought about poor Cara, oblivious that mom probably had more hangovers than migraines. She did manage to shake her head though. “No. No tomato juice. Just aspirin and a dark window curtain.”

“Well that’s too bad,” Cara frowned for a split second before going back to her usual perky self, “feel better though, okay?”

Before Nicole could respond, Cara walked past her and headed towards the staircase. She continued walking to her room, almost walking into the corner wall while trying to avoid the light. Both of the connected dorms were horseshoe patterned, with a garden area between them where kids congregated at all hours. Midday it was almost empty, but because of the natural privacy that it provided, it turned into a little drinking party most nights. Nicole hoped that this headache would pass so she could also enjoy herself later tonight.

Upon getting to room 314, Nicole dug around her purse to quickly find her keys. The plastic frog on her ring clanged against the door as she unlocked the door and gave it a light push open. She walked in and shut the door behind her with her heel while placing her purse around the right side of her desk chair. The room itself was just as ordinary as the building she resided in. Two twin beds, one of the left and one on the right side, with a mini-fridge in the middle. Each side of the room had a desk with an uncomfortable wooden chair, which Hannah already replaced with a rainbow-colored bean bag chair. Nicole opened her closet and took off the yellow hooded sweatshirt she’d been wearing, tossing it inside the hamper that sat in the middle.

She moved across the room to the window above the fridge and threw the single black curtain closed. Nicole always needed complete darkness when she slept, and thankfully Hannah was no different. The walls on each side of the room told the differences between the two. While Nicole had one poster above her bed of the band The Pretenders, Hannah’s half of the room was filled with a combination of posters and pictures of family and friends that were crookedly thumbtacked. Nicole was also the neater of the two, as evidence of her foot getting caught in Hannah’s purple tank top, which was haphazardly discarded on the floor in the middle of the room. She kicked it towards Hannah’s bed and sat down on the edge of hers, closing her eyes for a few seconds due to the sharp pain that lingered.

Nicole always kept a bottle of aspirin at her small bedside desk, but there was also another small container there. It was black and cylindrical with a silver top, something that was often used to hold reels of film. Lying down, Nicole grabbed for this bottle rather than the aspirin. She uncapped it and took out two small, white pills that were generic with the exception of the letter ‘P’ that was engraved. Without the assistance of water, Nicole popped them in her mouth one after the other. A part of her wished that she grabbed her phone out of her purse so she could listen to some music while she relaxed, but decided that complete silence might serve her better.

Despite the headache, she let out a contented sigh at the thought of feeling back to normal later, and the trip that she would take to get there. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off.


	2. Chapter 2

“And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

**2**

Nicole awoke as if struck by a bolt of lightning. Her breathing was heavy and beads of sweat slowly ran down her forehead until she wiped them away with the back of her hand. She found herself sitting upright in bed, and it took some concentration in order to get her breathing back to normal.

She also noticed that it was pitch black in her room. Even with the curtain drawn during the day, slivers of light poked their way in to make it discernable to tell day from night.

“I slept all day?”

Nicole asked herself, shaking her head after realizing that there was no one to really answer. At least her headache was gone, she thought to herself. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and reached for the desk beside her. Normally she would be able to instinctively find the desk lamp, but felt nothing in its normal place. Then she reached for her phone until she realized that the end table itself was no longer there.

“What?” Nicole wondered aloud, slowly getting to her feet. “Where’s my table? What’s going on?”

By now her eyes would usually be able to adjust to the shadows of her room, but this was a different kind of darkness. It was as if she stood in a void, and no matter which direction she gazed, there was only the pitch black. If she didn’t get up from her bed, she wouldn’t have even known it was there.

She had been staying in her dorm room long enough to know the layout and knowing her roommate’s housekeeping tendencies, she shuffled her feet a few steps forward so that she didn’t trip over any discarded clothes. Turning to the left, Nicole reached her hand out to the curtain. The light posts outside always came on a half hour before sunset; they would definitely be able to illuminate the room. But she felt no curtain, or anything for that matter. She was starting to get agitated, and accidentally stumbled towards the wall, letting out a surprised grunt. Finally, her hand touched something solid, but it didn’t make sense to her.

“How…?” Nicole started. She formed a fist against the surface and knocked against what felt like concrete. A solid wall stood where she knew her window to be. Her heart began to race as she frantically felt around on the wall, her breathing getting heavy again.

She had suffered through a panic attack a few years before and was beginning to relive that awful experience. Trying to calm herself down, she moved towards her bed and sat down again. She was positive that it was her bed. The fabric of the quilt that her grandmother made for her last birthday was familiar, so there had to be some other explanation. Thinking about this helped her calm down and take a few deep breaths.

“I’m dreaming,” Nicole stated, “that’s the only way to make sense of this.”

Even if it was just a dream, it wasn’t one that Nicole wanted to stay within. She laid her head back down on the pillow and closed her eyes, hoping that she possessed the ability to wake herself up. She tried to think of her room the way that she remembered it, the way that it really was. Maybe that would wake her up and everything would go back to normal. After about a minute, she opened her eyes. But there was still darkness; still nothingness surrounding her.

Nicole let out a deep breath and closed her eyes again. She began to think about being back home, in the bedroom where she grew up. She thought about the ceiling that had been littered with glow in the dark stars that she asked for when she eight, and never completely took down even as she became a teenager. She thought about Floppy, her stuffed rabbit that wore green overalls that she had since she an infant, which sat on her dresser after it was deemed too ‘kiddy’ to sleep with anymore. She thought about the smell of her mom making dinner, which despite working a full-time schedule, she still took the time to do every night. It seemed to be working, as Nicole swore she caught the scent of meat loaf emanating from…

**_THUMP! THUMP THUMP!_**

The noise sent a jolt through Nicole’s body as she sat up on her bed, staring straight ahead, wide-eyed and almost too terrified to move. Her mind was racing with a few thoughts, the first of which being what that noise was on the other side of the wall. The second thought, which immediately followed, was that she could see an outline of her door, which was the first thing she could actually see in her room since this nightmare started. Last, she wondered what the source of the light was that spilled from underneath the door. It was bright, but with a pinkish hue. The hall lights on her floor contained no color, but that was the last thing she was concerned with.

Nicole sat there, staring straight for what felt like an eternity, but in all likelihood was probably a couple of minutes. No other noise followed after the loud banging which stirred her, despite her waiting to see what would happen. She took another deep breath, slowly but surely psyching herself up to her feet. There was no reason to be so afraid, she said to herself, it’s not like this was reality. The room she woke up in was the same layout of her dorm room, so she rationalized that it had to be a dream. If the worst had happened, if she had been taken, it wouldn’t have been to an identical room. It helped the courage build-up in her body so that she was able to stand, slowly making his way over to the door.

Before she knew it, her hand was on the doorknob and slowly turning it. Be brave, she challenged herself. Despite how cold the bronze felt against her hand, it was still not real. Whatever was on the other side of that door couldn’t harm her. With that thought, she turned it as far as it could go, and pulled.

In contrast from the room she was in, the light’s intensity blinded her temporarily. She shielded her eyes with her left hand, then averted them towards the ground as she took a step forward. An unexpected cold sensation shocked her bare foot back into the room from where she came. It took her brain a few seconds to register what her eyes were seeing on the ground.

“Oh my God!” Nicole exclaimed.

Where a navy blue rug should have been in the dorm hallway, it was replaced by steel, or definitely some kind of metal. It appeared to be a grating, with small squares that couldn’t have been more than a centimeter in area. Much like the room which she was emerging from, only darkness could be seen through its slots.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, Nicole slowly raised her head. The walls were dotted with small, white tiles, and about a quarter of them were stained by some kind of dark red substance. A long smear of red ran across the wall directly in front of her, where the door to her neighbor would normally be. She saw the source of the light in front of her close to the ceiling. It was an uncovered light bulb with red stains enveloping it, cascading around the bulb and occasionally dropping the red liquid into a small pool below. Nicole didn’t need to touch it to know that it was blood. She could practically smell the iron.

“Ok Nic,” she started, taking in a big gulp of air before letting it out, “keep it together. Just figure this out, and you’ll be back in your room.”

Despite her surroundings, she was doing a good job of remaining calm. The belief of her false reality was indeed spiking her courage. She stepped out onto the floor again, with both feet and shut the door behind her.

It wasn’t the most comfortable surface to be walking on, but she forced her feet forward. The hall to her right seemed to stretch on forever, and was devoid of anything other than a trail of blood on the floor that disappeared past where she could see. To her left was a shorter hall that wrapped around to the left. There was a plain brown door straight ahead, and the area seemed to be cleaner and absent of any substance that didn’t belong. Nicole saw this as the better option.

She turned and headed towards the door with a quick pace. She reached down to grab the handle but came up empty. Looking down, there was nothing there. No way to open it. A hard push was to no avail as well. It was time to consider another option. Nicole turned to look down this new hallway, and saw that the first impression of a friendlier setting was merely an illusion.

Everything was in disarray. The blood was there, on the floor in front of her, on the walls and even the ceiling. A few chairs and a table were overturned, manila folders and papers were scattered everywhere, showing the familiar stains that were covering everything. There were pieces of something black on the floor around her feet. Nicole knelt down to discern the scattered debris, which felt like a hard plastic. Standing back up straight, she took a few more steps down the hallway, and spied what looked like a bed with wheels on it tipped over on its side. It was a gurney.

“A hospital.” Nicole wondered out loud. “Why am I in a hospital? And whose blood…”

Nicole’s thoughts were interrupted by a faint noise. It sounded like it was coming from farther down the hall. It was steady and rhythmic, a dull thud that rang throughout the hallway every few seconds. A combination of the sound and the frosty environment sent chills down her spine, but she slowly pushed forward.

She was careful to look down every so often to make sure she wasn’t stepping into blood. As she inched farther down the hall, the sound got louder, and was accompanied by another, faint sound that Nicole couldn’t quite discern yet. Running water maybe, she thought to herself. Passing the gurney, Nicole looked down to see a silver tray flipped upside down on the floor, with a few instruments scattered around. She knelt down and quickly snatched the scalpel that she saw. It wasn’t the most imposing weapon, but just having it made her feel safer. Nicole clutched it tight and continued down the hall, seeing a dead end ahead, with only a left path to take. Considering the increasing volume of the sound, she was preparing herself for what she might find.

The first thing Nicole saw as she prepared to turn the corner was a crack in the floor just around the turn. She hugged the wall, still clutching the scalpel close to her body. The thudding was now intense, and the other sound which had been faint was now clear, almost like someone was pouring sand or another granular substance on the ground. She took a deep breath and peeked around the corner.

The hallway itself was much like the ones she had went through thus far, with smears of blood along the walls and ceiling. The one thing that was different was the confirmation that she was not alone in this place. The source of the sound was a mere ten yards away, and was discovered to be a hammer, that was being driven into a wall and causing bits of cement to fall to the floor. Holding the hammer was a figure that was a good foot taller than Nicole was, and dressed in what appeared to be black scrubs, complete with a surgical cap and mask. Curiosity got the better of Nicole and caused her to lean out a little more, seeing something else at the feet of the masked figure. It was the same thing that polluted the rest of the area, and was gradually growing in size to the point that it was surrounding the figure’s feet. With every strike of the hammer, a little more cement fell, and little more blood dripped from its head.

It came out suddenly and reflexively. Nicole had accidentally pressed the scalpel against her too hard, and nicked her arm. She pulled herself back around the corner and covered her mouth, but she knew that it was too late. The banging had ceased, and had been replaced by another rhythmic pattern, that was drawing ever nearer. Nicole began to breathe heavily again, and it took all of her will power not to completely hyperventilate. The sound drew closer and was accompanied now by heavy breathing that was not her own. There were two options that she could think of, and she didn’t know if she could outrun whoever was now coming for her. She slid down the wall onto her butt, thinking that maybe she could slow it down.

She kept her eyes on the corner, so that the second she saw its foot, she struck out with the scalpel and jammed it in. It let out an almost inhuman cry and retracted behind the wall. Nicole took this moment to hop to her feet and bolt back down from where she came. She didn’t take a second to look back and see if it was following her; the stomping behind her told that story. Rounding the corner, she slid on some blood and slammed her left shoulder into the wall, but was fortunate to bounce back upright. She did her best to ignore the pain and kept moving, passing by the dark room and starting down the way she hadn’t gone before.

"Shit!” Nicole exclaimed while stopping in her tracks. There was a gap in the floor about five feet wide, and darkness below. She couldn’t tell how far down it was, nor did she want to risk it. Her pursuer was closing in on her. It was about to come around the corner, and considering that her scalpel barely stopped it, she knew that she was no match for it.

Taking a few steps back, Nicole caught its shape out of the corner of her eye before she ran forward. She wasn’t a great athlete, but managed to clear the gap. However, she landed awkward on her left ankle and stumbled to the ground. She began to pull herself forward and turning around as she saw the figure come at her. It didn’t break stride as it raised its hammer. Nicole raised her right arm in front of her, closing her eyes and preparing for the inevitable.

She heard another one of those cries for a few seconds, and then nothing. Cautiously, she opened her eyes to see that it was no longer there. All she saw was the black surgical cap that it had been wearing, on the floor right in front of the gap she had leapt. The thing must have not seen the hole, and all that remained of it was the cap. Nicole laughed uneasily, not believing her luck and that for the moment, she was safe. She slowly got to her feet, posting on her left arm and being reminded of the pain her left arm. She winced as she now used her right arm to support herself back standing.

So much for trying not to get any of the blood on yourself, she thought. It was all over her clothes, on her hands and her feet. She felt a sharp pain her feet when she began to walk. The surface on the floor was not conducive to walking on barefoot, and lifting her right foot confirmed that there were small scrapes all along the bottom. Nicole began to walk a little more gingerly down this new hallway, noticing that there wasn’t nearly as much blood or grime compared to where she just was. She also noticed an open door at the end of the hall, and something familiar caught her eye. It was her backpack.

Finally, Nicole let out a sigh of relief. This whole encounter had been stressful, and she looked forward to just laying down in her bed and closing her eyes again. Hopefully once back in her room, she would wake up, and have the rest of the night to look forward to.

Nicole staggered to the front door, peering inside to see that everything was as normal, except that Hannah wasn’t inside. Why would she be in my dream, Nicole thought to herself, smiling after stepping onto the carpeted floor. It was much more comfortable on her sore feet. Nicole turned around and shut the door, resting her head against it and closing her eyes again. She had made it back.

Suddenly, she felt a tug against her throat, followed by a light breeze. It was strange to feel that in such a place, she thought. It was accompanied by something dropping onto her hands, and her eyes felt heavy. She struggled to keep them opened as she looked down, not realizing just how much blood she had gotten on her skin. It was when she saw more droplets hit that she realized her situation, and brought her hand to her throat. She staggered back while looking at her hand, seeing it covered in dark red. Her legs gave out from under her and she slammed back first onto the ground. She tried to cry out for help, but the blood pooling in her throat prevented it from happening. Everything started to fade, and tears began to form in her eyes. It all felt so real.


	3. Chapter 3

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”  
-Haruki Murakami

**Three**

On a normal Saturday morning, it usually took until noon for the campus to start buzzing with life from the student body. The appearance of a couple of police cars, an ambulance and four or five news trucks told the residents in and around Clearview University, that it wasn’t a normal Saturday morning.

There hadn’t been a death on university grounds in four years, and that was the overdose of a local homeless man who wandered onto the campus. The sad reality was that he was carted off without making any real buzz in the outside world. It was an entirely different situation when a co-ed was found dead, especially the manner in which she was found.

The crowd surrounding the entrance to Warren Hall was a few hundred deep. Rumors were already swirling around on what happened to Nicole Baldwin. All that was confirmed was that her roommate Hannah had found her when she woke up around 7 am. Hannah was speaking with a police officer near the front door, but couldn’t get out more than a few words before beginning to cry again. There was too much of a commotion for anybody else to hear what she was saying.

The news reporters were all set up around the perimeter of the crowd. Their respective camera operators were all trying to get the best view of the scene, with a couple of them camped out on the top of their trucks. One of the reporters, the lady from the channel 9 affiliate, was already interviewing some of the students, trying to get the rumor mill working. As she was finishing up with a young man with dyed blue hair, she all but shooed him away in order to get to her next subject. She reached out and grabbed the arm of another student as he was trying to pass by.

“…the fuck?” He asked, turning and yanking out his ear buds. Not only was he startled, but his reaction startled the reporter as well.

“Sorry,” the reporter replied while composing herself. She then cleared her throat and held up the microphone in her right hand. “I’m Karen London for Channel 9 news. I was wondering what you thought of this tragedy; did you know the victim Nicole Baldwin?”

The guy tucked his buds over the tops of his ears and looked around. He appeared as if he was just noticing the crowd and the situation for the first time. He also noticed the camera that was now pointing at him, and turned his face away from it with a shrug.

“No, I didn’t know her. I just heard that someone died last night or this morning. I don’t know much else.”

He kept his eyes on the scene rather than the reporter or the camera. He began to walk away but Karen had moved a couple of steps in his path.

“I see. Well, what do you think about what’s happened? Do you still feel safe on campus? Do you live on campus?”

He jerked his head back a few inches as Karen pointed the microphone at him. Before he could say anything, a commotion was heard by the front of the dorm. The reporter was now leaving and her camera man wasn’t too far behind. He took the opportunity to leave, but looked through the crowd before doing so. The scene itself was jarring to the crowd surrounding it. Two EMT’s emerged from the building, escorting a gurney with a body on top of it. Despite a long, white sheet completely covering it, everyone knew that it was Nicole. Her roommate Hannah cried out again, shrinking back against the wall as she watched her friend being taken away.

The guy had recognized Hannah from yesterday. He passed her and another girl on the small wooden bridge. He had locked eyes with the girl that was walking next to her, momentarily thinking that she looked familiar. Was that the girl who had died? It was eerie to think about and sent a chill down his spine wondering if it was her.

A wave of people was coming his way, as if the tragic events had a magnetic pull that only he was immune to. To him, death wasn’t something that he needed to gawk at. Perhaps it was the way that he was raised, or the fact that he was there when his grandfather passed away in the hospital, but he didn’t need to stand around and watch the poor girl being carted off, nor did he want to be a sound bite.

He crossed the wooden bridge as he did the day before without a second thought. It wasn’t a very big school, so recognizing people but not being able to place them wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. He barely paid attention to most of the people in his classes, nor was he the member of any after school clubs or fraternities. He liked to keep the circle of people he associated with as small as possible. It provided him the anonymity that he preferred. Even as a kid, he was an introvert at heart. Unfortunately, as he got older, some exceptions to the rule had to be made, so his life at Clearview tended to be busier than he would have liked.

Due to the campus’ layout, it only took a little more than ten minutes to walk through from north to south. He cut through the visitor’s parking deck at the southeast end, which was always empty between Friday evening and Monday morning. Only the sound of his footsteps accompanied him through the lot, which was welcoming to him after the busy morning he had stumbled across. It also gave him time to perform his Saturday morning ritual. He took off his headphones, unplugging them from his phone and placed them in the pocket of his gray sweatshirt.

He took a deep breath, then began to run as fast as he could across the lower level of the parking lot. He slowed down to turn the corner and run hard up the incline to the second level. This pattern continued up to the third and finally up to the fourth and final level, walking over to the edge and taking a minute to look out across the campus. Beautiful weather for October, Will thought to himself. The campus offered nicer pathways for joggers than the one he chose, but none of them offered the solitude that the deck provided at this hour, especially given the circumstances.

Exiting the parking deck, he found himself on Prospect Road, the south border of the campus. It had a mini mall on the opposite side, with a convenience store, laundromat and a school supplies store, with a Chinese restaurant on one end and an Italian restaurant on the other. He turned east, walking along Prospect and crossing over after about a block. Surrounding the school was a residential area of about five square miles, with an urban area further south which lead to the next town over past that.

It wasn’t long before he turned up the walkway that led to a two-story house. The house was much like the others on the block, with the exception of the painted green exterior, which stood out amongst the row of pristine looking but ultimately dull white houses. This particular house also featured a dead front lawn and other signs of disregard. He kicked an empty bottle out of his way as he got to the front door. To his chagrin, it was ajar, not locked as he would have liked it.

The same level of disregard could be found inside the house that could be found outside of it. A soccer jersey hung over the bottom of the staircase’s banister and for some reason, there was a slice of pizza sitting perfectly on the third step. He sidestepped the slice and continued up the stairs, walking as quietly as he could so to not disturb the residents which he believed to still be sleeping.

“Yo Will. How was the run?” someone asked.

As he got to the second floor, he saw that the door to the bedroom across the top of the landing was open. It was John’s room, the resident night owl of the house. Not that he was the hardest partier, but he purposely scheduled his classes to start no earlier than one in the afternoon if he could help it. Will was surprised that this particular roommate was awake.

“Exhilarating,” Will responded while moving towards the door, “but I think this is the first time you’ve been awake when I got back. What’s up?”

John looked disheveled, like he hadn’t slept all night. His room was the smallest, and possibly the most cluttered. He sat in his computer chair, keeping his eyes fixed on the flat-screen that he situated against the wall next to the door.

“You hear about that girl, the one who died? Messed up, man.” He stated before taking a sip out of the sixty-four-ounce Marvel novelty cup that he had. “I mean, yeah life sucks sometimes, but that’s what therapy or posting anonymously on forums are for.”

Will took a step into the room, craning his neck to look at the TV. The line across the bottom told him the rest of the story that he stumbled across this morning: ‘Local Girl Commits Suicide’, along with a photo of a smiling Nicole Baldwin.

“She killed herself?” Will asked while turning back to John. “All I heard is that a girl died. Didn’t know how.”

“Did you know her?” John asked, finally tearing his eyes away from the TV to look at Will. John was about as expressionless as a person could be, so his question almost seemed accusatory.

“No.” Will answered abruptly, taking a step back and leaning against the door frame. “Although she looked familiar. Maybe I had a class with her.”

“Doubt it,” John retorted, “apparently she was a freshman. I thought she looked familiar too, so maybe she was at one of our parties.”

Will nodded, thinking to himself that it was entirely possible. There was a party every Saturday night here, ranging from fifteen to as many as one hundred and fifteen people, depending on the night. It was mostly his other roommates’ doing, specifically Teddy and Curt. It served a purpose to entertain him on some nights, but Will often retreated into his room after a while just to get away. John often opted to hang out in his room as well, being the only straight-edge member of the house.

"I guess they all kind of pass through this place at some point.” Will remarked. “Makes me feel like the guide to the underworld at times.”

“Charon?” John asked, although he already knew the answer.

“I can always rely on you to fill in the blanks.” Will stated with a chuckle. He turned towards the hall. “You want the door closed?”

“Yeah. I think I’m gonna try to sleep for a few hours.” John said while turning the TV off. He got up, only to fall comfortably onto his bed which was a mere foot away from his computer desk. “Until next time.”

“Good night.” Will said as he closed the door behind him.

The second floor had four bedrooms total, and one bathroom. The sixth door on the floor led to the attic, which Will would claim as his room. It was larger than the rest of the rooms, which made sense in his mind, since he paid the largest portion of the rent. It also was the only room which could be locked from the outside. Will took a set of keys out of his left pants’ pocket and unlocked the door to his room.  
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his roommates to steal from him, not all of them at least. Will’s room just contained items that he deemed too valuable to go missing. He locked the door behind him while flipping on the light switch. The attic’s original layout wasn’t ideal, but with enough work done, such as rigging up the lighting to his liking, it was a sufficient enough home. It was a short ten steps up to the final landing on the house, which indeed was the size of three bedrooms. True that the roof sloped to where portions of the attic were uncomfortable to stand in, but he made good use of the space. His bed was straight ahead next to the circular attic window, which had a large dark red blanket over it to block out the sun when he left, casting a crimson glow during the day. To the left was his desk where he kept his computer and a pile of books. He had a futon couch in the middle facing the right side where a large TV and entertainment system was rigged up, mostly sitting on the floor due to height constraints.

The last item of interest in the room was a large rectangle shape covered by a white sheet, which sat inconspicuously on the other side of the attic. Will took his sweatshirt off and had to crouch down towards the area where it was. He rooted around through its pockets, taking out his phone and headphones, placing them on a small table beside the chest. He removed the white sheet, showing off a large, wooden chest was underneath. It looked old, possibly an heirloom, or something found at an antique shop. There were also some undiscernible carvings all over the top, and on the front of it. He twirled the combination lock around a few times to unlock it. It creaked open as he lifted it up with one hand, while rooting around through his pockets with his other hand.

He took out a small, black film canister, and then another. In total, he removed seven of them from the middle pocket of his sweatshirt, setting them on the floor in front of the chest. He opened one of them, just to confirm what he was expecting to find. Plucking one of its contents out, he held the little white pill between his thumb and index finger. After a quick inspection, he found the ‘P’ symbol he was looking for and dropped the pill back into the canister. He unfolded a red cloth in the chest to reveal that about twenty more of the canisters were already in the chest. Will placed the rest of the canisters in the chest and shut it, locked it and covered it once again with the white sheet.


End file.
